Restraining Prayer: Is It Sin?

By Andrew Murray
"Thou restrainest prayer before God" (Job 15:4).
"God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you" (1 Sam. 12:23).
If we are to deal effectually with the lack of prayer we must ask, "Restraining prayer
(prayerlessness), is it sin?" And if it be, how is it to be dealt with, to be discovered, and confessed, and
cast out by man, and cleansed away by God? Jesus is a Savior from sin. To see that our prayer sins are
indeed sins, is the first step to a true and divine deliverance from them. Let us look at the sin of
prayerlessness, and at the sinfulness that lies at the root of it.
1. The presence of sin makes the presence of God impossible. The presence of God is the great
privilege of God’s people, and their only power against the enemy. Throughout Scripture is the great
central promise: "I am with thee." This marks off the wholehearted believer from the worldling and
worldly Christians around him: he lives consciously hidden in the secret of God’s presence.
2. Defeat and failure are always owing to the loss of God’s presence. In the Christian life and the
work of the Church, defeat is ever a sign of the loss of God’s presence. If we apply this to our failure in
the prayer life, and as a result of that, to our failure in work for God, we are led to see that all is simply
owing to our not standing in clear and full fellowship with God. His nearness, His immediate presence
has not been the chief thing sought after and trusted in. He could not work in us as He would. Loss of
blessing and power is ever caused by the loss of God’s presence.
3. The loss of God’s presence is always owing to some hidden sin. Defeat is God’s voice telling us
there is something wrong. He has given Himself so wholly to His people, He delights so in being with
them, and would so fain reveal in them His love and power, that He never withdraws Himself unless
they compel Him by sin.
Through the Church there is a complaint of defeat. Powerful conversions are comparatively rare.
The fewness of holy, consecrated, spiritual Christians devoted to the service of God and their fellow
men is felt everywhere. The power of the Church for the preaching of the Gospel is paralyzed by the
scarcity of money and men; and all owing to the lack of the effectual prayer which brings the Holy
Spirit in power, first on ministers and believers, then on missionaries and the unsaved.
4. God Himself will discover the hidden sin. God must show to us how the lack of prayer is the
indication of unfaithfulness to our consecration vow that God should have all our heart and life. We
must see that this prayerlessness, with the excuses we make for it, is greater sin than we have thought,
for it means that we have little taste or relish for fellowship with God; that our faith rests more on our
own work and efforts than on the power of God; that we have little sense of the heavenly blessing God
waits to shower down; that we are not ready to sacrifice the ease and confidence of the flesh for
persevering waiting on God; that the spirituality of our life, and our abiding in Christ, is altogether too
feeble to make us prevail in prayer.
When the pressure of work for Christ is allowed to be the excuse for our not finding time to seek
and secure His own presence and power in it as our chief need, it surely proves that there is no right
sense of our absolute dependence upon God; no deep apprehension of the divine and supernatural work
of God in which we are only His instruments, no true entrance into the heavenly character of our
mission and aims, no full surrender to and delight in Christ Jesus Himself.
If we were to yield to God’s Spirit to show us that all this is in very deed the meaning of remissness
in prayer, and of our allowing other things to crowd it out, all our excuses would fall away, and we
should fall down and cry, "We have sinned!" Samuel once said, "As for me, God forbid that I should
sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you" (1 Sam. 12:23). Ceasing from prayer is sin against God.
5. When God discovers sin in us, it must be confessed and cast out. When the sin is no more hidden,
when the Holy Spirit begins to convince of it, then comes the time of heart-searching. If we have
reason to think this is the sin that is "in the camp," let us look the solemn fact in the face. Let us bring it
out before God, and give up this sin to the death. Let no fear of past failure, let no threatening array of
temptations, or duties, or excuses, keep us back. It is a simple question of obedience. Surely we can
count upon God’s grace to accept and strengthen for the life He asks of us.
6. With sin cast out God’s presence is restored. God’s presence restored means victory secured. In
this matter of prayer God does not demand of us impossibilities. He will give the grace to do what He
asks, and so to pray that our intercessions shall be a pleasure to Him and to us, a source of strength to
our conscience and our work, and a channel of blessing to those for whom we labour. Bow in silence
and wait before God until He overshadows you with His presence and leads you out of that region of
argument as to human possibilities where conviction of sin can never be deep, and full deliverance can
never come. Take quiet time, and be still before God, that He may take this matter in hand. Leave
yourself in God’s hands.
Abridged from The Ministry of Intercession by Andrew Murray.